Small cars: June sales overview

The Mazda3 has continued its strong start to 2012, once again pipping the Toyota Corolla to the post as the most popular small car in the country in June, as it did last month.

The Corolla narrowed the gap to 120 vehicles behind the Mazda3 (3924), with the battle for third place going down to the wire as the Holden Cruze (3057) only just eked out the Hyundai i30 by a mere 33 vehicles.

A strong 53 per cent growth saw the Kia Cerato (1016) take out ninth place while an almost 40 per cent decline saw the tenth placed Subaru Impreza fall bellow the magical four figures with 830 units.

Five of the top seven vehicles across the industry in June were small cars, emphasising the popularity of the segment.

Interestingly, while the small-car segment has experienced growth of five per cent year to date (25,561 versus 24,690 in 2011), its share of the total market has declined from 24.2 per cent to 23.0 per cent – a result that can largely be attributed to the increasing popularity of SUVs.